Get Post by Title in WordPress

functions.php

function get_post_by_title($page_title, $output = OBJECT) {
    global $wpdb;
        $post = $wpdb->get_var( $wpdb->prepare( "SELECT ID FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_title = %s AND post_type='post'", $page_title ));
        if ( $post )
            return get_post($post, $output);

    return null;
}